Notice of Appeal from Boston College

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“We would like to welcome Boston College’s decision to lodge an appeal against the subpoenas served against seven of our interviewees but regret and deplore that for reasons that defy common sense the college omitted the interviews with Dolours Price.

“With respect to the standard of review of the materials we can see absolutely no difference between the seven cases now to be appealed by BC and that of Dolours Price. For our part we will continue our fight to protect all our interviewees, Republican and Loyalist, including Dolours Price.”

STATEMENT FROM BOSTON COLLEGE REGARDING TODAY’S APPEAL OF THE BELFAST PROJECT SUBPOENA, 2-21-12

“Boston College today filed an appeal of the District Court’s most recent decision (issued January 20, 2012) requiring the University to turn over all or parts of the interviews of seven individuals who took part in The Belfast Project, an oral history project on the Troubles in Northern Ireland. The University is seeking further review of the court’s order to ensure that the value of the interviews to the underlying criminal investigation by the Police Service of Northern Ireland outweighs the interests in protecting the confidentiality of academic research materials.

“Boston College did not appeal the District Court’s first decision in this case (issued December 16, 2011) because the court both accepted Boston College’s argument that government subpoenas for confidential academic materials requires heightened scrutiny, and agreed to review the materials in camera to help protect the significant interests at stake. In its appeal, Boston College will argue that the District Court incorrectly applied its own review standard when it demanded the production of the interviews of these seven individuals.”

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The value of the Oral Tradition is its democracy; it doesn't give to an intellectual elite the exclusive right to shape a communal memory and the collective memory. It makes into a common wealth the story of our shared lives. It's something that we share in common – and it's like a collection plate into which we can all put something: our stories, our myths and the ease with which we are able to, in some way, cross boundaries. - Cleophus Thomas, Jr.

First Circuit Court of Appeals

May, 2013

“… we must forcefully conclude that preserving the judicial power to supervise the enforcement of subpoenas in the context of the present case, guarantees the preservation of a balance of powers… In substance, we rule that the enforcement of subpoenas is an inherent judicial function which, by virtue of the doctrine of separation of powers, cannot be constitutionally divested from the courts of the United States. Nothing in the text of the US-UK MLAT, or its legislative history, has been cited by the government to lead us to conclude that the courts of the United States have been divested of an inherent judicial role that is basic to our function as judges.”

“… the district court acted within its discretion in ordering their production, it abused its discretion in ordering the production of a significant number of interviews that only contain information that is in fact irrelevant to the subject matter of the subpoena.”

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